What's Brewing & Doing - December Edition

Baked up some dog biscuits from the spent grains of my English Brown Ale that I brewed last weekend:

 

Wasn't planning on brewing another batch til the new year, but forgot my wife will be out of town next weekend so I've got an opening! Boiled up some starter wort and stored in jars. Started building up a big starter of weihenstephan yeast for this smoked weizenbock in a week.

 

Bottled my porter just now and I'm encouraged by what I'm tasting and smelling at this point. It's nicely roasted without being burnt tasting and it has an interesting malt flavor which I'm guessing is from the brown malt. It also has some esters from the yeast which sets it apart from my previous batches using US05 and it definitely gives off an English vibe.

 

Mashing in an Oatmeal IPA

 

Recently brewed 5.25 gallons hoppy pale with London III.

9lbs Pale
1lb C20
.5 lb flaked oats

12oz hops split between Columbus (bittering), Citra, Simcoe, and Hallertau Blanc. Currently looking like hop gravy.

 

Brewed a few batches for blending to fill my 30L Barrel.
One I wort soured for 24hrs to give the blend a little acidity, not looking for a full on sour.
I'll need to brew another batch to get to the final volume plus a little topping beer.

I'm making a NZ Sauvignon Blanc inspired saison.
Grapefruit zest and juice, and white pepper at flame out.
NZ hops (pacific jade)... of course for bittering.
Using yeast cultured up from St.Bretta dregs.

Age ~1mo in ex Sauvignon Blanc barrel.
Dry hop with Moteuka just before bottle conditioning.

 

Pulled a hydrometer sample for my Vienna lager today and did a diacetyl force test. Gravity was down to 1.013. I would have liked it a little dryer, but I think this is where it finished. I couldn't detect much diacetyl, but there was some/ Cranked the temp up to 70 hoping to clean it up. The other point of note is that .3 lbs of carafe special III was too much dark color malt for this beer. Is it a dark Vienna or an underhopped schwarzbier?

 

Started a starter with wlp090. It's my first use of the new pure pitch packaging, which I didn't find all that user friendly. The yeast was a pretty thick paste and hard to get out of the pouch. Before I cut the pouch, I tried to massage it, to mix what little liquid was there with the yeast, but when I cut it open, the liquid just spurted out. I had to push the yeast out like toothpaste.

 

PHRASING!

 

Relax, Frankie. There's nothing there but innocent words.

 

Just bottled my latest American Sour. This is my first pull from my 10 gallon Solera project. After one year of fermentation with Roeselare and a ton of Cantillon and 3F dregs, I pulled 5 gallons to sit on 10 pounds of local, fresh peaches for 3 months. I bottled it with a white wine yeast, should be ready in a few months.

 

Wow, that's a viscous beer! ...heading out to the arctic tundra to brew @ small batch of El Dorado/Equinox/Full Pint IPA

 

Just removed the 7oz of dry hop and its friggin great. Down to 1.004 and ~7.2%
Cold crashing now and will keg on Sunday.

 

A few days ago I added Brett, and some Paradox dregs to a keg of what should have been a Barleywine...but crapped out on me. So, that will secondary for about a year.

Sunday, I'll be brewing a Golden Strong, that will be dry-hopped with rhubarb in the keg. I'm basing the recipe off of some guidance I received from Olvalde Brewing on their The Auroch's Horn Aged on Rhubarb...which is just ridiculously good.

 

Peeling and Freezing Bananas.

 

Cold crashing WLP090 starter. Will be brewing a pale ale tomorrow with Simcoe and Centennial kettle hops. Citra and Amarillo planned for dry hop.

 

Oaked smoked magik, to harsh the first month after bottleing but after another 2 months its really coming around.

 

I've been busy with work the past few weeks but I will be making a milk stout tomorrow that is going to drive all the white gurlzzz crazy. I'm adding pumpkin spice, vanilla beans, and pumpkin spice flavored coffee. It should turn out pretty amazing.

 

Golden Sour I referenced earlier started to re-ferment pretty good. Had to add a blow off.